RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Triggering of the Ventilator in Patient-Ventilator Interactions
JF Respiratory Care
FD American Association for Respiratory Care
SP 39
OP 51
DO 10.4187/respcare.01006
VO 56
IS 1
A1 Sassoon, Catherine SH
YR 2011
UL http://rc.rcjournal.com/content/56/1/39.abstract
AB With current ventilator triggering design, in initiating ventilator breaths patient effort is only a small fraction of the total effort expended to overcome the inspiratory load. Similarly, advances in ventilator pressure or flow delivery and inspiratory flow termination improve patient effort or inspiratory muscle work during mechanical ventilation. Yet refinements in ventilator design do not necessarily allow optimal patient-ventilator interactions, as the clinician is key in managing patient factors and selecting appropriate ventilator factors to maintain patient-ventilator synchrony. In patient-ventilator interactions, unmatched patient flow demand by ventilator flow delivery results in flow asynchrony, whereas mismatches between mechanical inspiratory time (mechanical TI) and neural TI produce timing asynchrony. Wasted efforts are an example of timing asynchrony. In the triggering phase, trigger thresholds that are set too high or the type of triggering methods induces wasted efforts. Wasted efforts can be aggravated by respiratory muscle weakness or other conditions that reduce respiratory drive. In the post-triggering phase, ventilator factors play an important role in patient-ventilator interaction; this role includes the assistance level, set inspiratory flow rate, TI, pressurization rate, and cycling-off threshold, and to some extent, applied PEEP. This paper proposes an algorithm that clinicians can use to adjust ventilator settings with the goal to eliminate or reduce patients' wasted efforts.